In 2013, I became founding director of Be Here Now Mindfulness, LLC. As a practicing meditator and psycho-therapist for almost two decades, it was time for me to take a leap of faith and truly combine my own spiritual practice with my work. It was the best thing I have ever decided to do. I began incorporating meditation of many forms into my therapy practice and my clients were healing faster and more profoundly. They were developing meaningful lives, staying steady amidst the chaos, and opening their hearts back up compassionately to the world, even though in many cases it had hurt or even broken them. The most miraculous thing perhaps from this wise practice of meditation, is I became the first recipient of the compassion my clients were cultivating. Watching their resiliency and confidence grow, lifted me up, so I was able to give more. My helping profession became electrically charged and I still feel like I have an endless reservoir to give. Teaching clients meditation and compassion, seems to link me to what I like to call “Big Compassion.” A resource that I can tap into and prevent burn-out from a regularly empathy fatigued job.

Here is what I can offer you:

Presence: Training in meditation and stillness provides you with a unique gift of presence. You learn to listen more effectively. As a therapist you are most likely already an above average listener, but you will be surprised how much more you will hear when you are meditating regularly. You will also learn to “track” their body language more accurately, which is when you discover that the wisdom of the body speaks louder than your clients words. And, you will engage in exercises that train you to listen from your heart. This takes “fixing it” off of the menu. You become a trail guide, verses a trail manager, and you witness your clients being able to put their own soul-skins back on and take responsibility for their lives.

Compassion: I have extensive training in compassion and for the past decade have been absorbed in the neuroscience and research that is emerging in this exciting field. You will learn about this incredibly complex body and mind state, not only in how it can prevent burn-out in you as a healer, but also how empowering it can be when instilled in your clients. Compassion is not “nice” training. It is really quite a meaningful endeavor providing you with the endurance and sense of agency to hold on to yourself. As caregivers, we often fall in the category of having poor boundaries ourselves. I used to be a 2 on the enneagram, and many other therapists relate to this as well. Compassion is good boundaries set from heart intentions. From here, we can help from a sense of confidence, strength and wisdom.

Patience: Have you ever sat in a session with a client where you can see the entire path of your client light years ahead of what they can see with their narrowed vision? And, you can also see the entire yellow brick road they need to get on to literally alleviate all of their suffering? And then in good old fashioned advice giving, we lose patience and just hand them the directions to their life. Meditation slows all of this down and you can sit in awe, wonder, curiosity, and non-judgement. Freeing you from impatience and from “fixing” it all. It all becomes part of the curriculum and you gain much more happiness from the journey when your client discovers “aha” moments on their own accord.

Flexibility: I love the analogy of the willow tree. As a healer you are rooted, and solid, know your own values, have been extensively trained in ethics and hopefully have a strong moral code as your guiding compass. But, we are often rigid in our “having to be right” or “seeing what’s best” for others. With meditation coaching, you can maintain your own psychological shape, but bend, sway, and be flexible like a willow tree in a breeze. You are able to bring in more humor, spontaneity, childhood pluck, and model effective and healthy traits for your clients. We train in coaching how to have a solid-flexible self.

Resilience: This is my favorite word as of late, because I think it captures the quality of all of the above. How do we bounce back from all that we see and hear in an average work day? Vicarious trauma impacts 70-80% of counselors. If you don’t think you fall into this category, see if you can identify with any of these symptoms by reading a recent publication in the ACA here.

Meditation and compassion is an effective and proven way to prevent vicarious trauma, burn-out, compassion or empathy fatigue and keep you doing what you do best.

Signing up for meditation coaching will help you keep on helping others. Not only will your clients gain from it, but you will see that you will be the first recipient of its benefits as well.

To check availability and schedule please contact us here or call 678-428-2730